Six dead, dozens wounded in Thai south after car bomb attack

At least six people were killed and more than 40 were wounded on Friday after a car bomb exploded in a busy shopping street in Thailand’s insurgency-hit south, officials told reporters.

Overwhelmed nurses scrambled to help as casualties poured into the main hospital in Sai Buri town, a reporter at the scene said, describing blood trails smeared across the floor as the bodies of the dead were carried in.

“There are six dead now, three men and three women,” a Public Health ministry official said in Bangkok – a toll confirmed by the local hospital which said five civilians were among the dead.

“Altogether 41 people have been wounded either from shrapnel or burns,” she said, adding 19 “seriously injured” people had been ferried to bigger provincial hospitals.

An army spokesman said CCTV footage showed three militants opening fire on shops in Sai Buri town centre shortly after Friday prayers in the Muslim-majority region, to lure security forces to the scene, before detonating the bomb.

A complex insurgency calling for greater autonomy has plagued Thailand’s Muslim-majority far south near the border with Malaysia since 2004, claiming more than 5,300 lives, both Buddhist and Muslim, with near daily bomb or gun attacks.

The bomb, which sparked a fire that destroyed several shops, was meant as a warning to locals not to talk with security forces after nearly 100 suspected militants “surrendered” last week, according to Colonel Pramote Prom-in, an army spokesman in the south.